


The Honeymoon from Heck

by Gnom_DePlume



Category: Beetle Juice (1988)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon - Movie, F/M, Ghosts, Humor, Lime, Swearing, Underage Kissing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-02
Updated: 2016-03-04
Packaged: 2018-01-10 23:12:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 19,758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1165706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gnom_DePlume/pseuds/Gnom_DePlume
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A butterfly flapped its wings, the fates aligned, and they went down the wrong leg of the trousers of time: Lydia says, "I do," but what happens next?  Movieverse AU</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. In Which the Marriage Goes Forward as Planned

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on ff.net in 2009
> 
> In archiving my fics here I am doing a serious edit and revamping the longer pieces. So while this fic is already complete, it may take a while to post! I probably will not include the other original author notes unless they contain warnings. Some of the chapters have been combined or broken up differently, and some bonus 'behind-the-scenes' material has been added that explains why it takes the Maitlands so long to show up with Juno.
> 
> Also, isn't it exciting there really might be a sequel?!

Lydia had been stuffed unwillingly into a poufy tulle monstrosity, her parents were captivated by Delia’s sculptures in a way nobody had ever been before, and it was hitting her right in the gut with a gnawing terror what a horrible thing she had agreed to do. He had seemed so much cleaner and harmless when he was two inches high, although of course she hadn’t forgotten the giant snake. And now he was treating her arm like a leash.

“And you. Do you, Lydia, take this man to be your wedded husband?” the reverend intoned.

She was right on the cusp of shouting 'No!' when her frantic gaze caught on the Maitlands, who were beginning to pick themselves up (literally). And to her right Beetlejuice was nodding and motioning the reverend on, expecting her to uphold their bargain just as he had even though he could simply take whatever he wanted now. That realization made her heart tremble just that much more in its frenetic pace. But he just wanted an ‘I do’ and then he was gone, right? He didn’t want a real marriage, right? He gets a green card, I get to say I’m hitched, that’s how he explained it. He was scary, but he hadn’t actually hurt anybody, right?

She took a deep breath, stomped down her disgust. She wasn’t going to flinch at a little mold and grave dirt; it wasn’t like he was all bloody veins and pus. “I do.”

“Then by the authority invested in me – the ring, please?”

“Argh! The ring!” Beetlejuice started frantically going through his pockets, dumping handfuls of creepy crawlies on the floor. Lydia winced. “You know I got it, honey.”

“Beetle-“ Adam started to say, but Lydia interrupted.

“Stop it! I agreed to this," she said, trying to warn him off.

Beetlejuice finally pulled the ring out, still on someone else’s finger. “Here it is, here we go….”

“Eurgh!” Lydia gagged, but didn’t resist as he took her hand. She was wearing gloves, right? So it wouldn’t actually touch her skin. And when he was gone she could take it off and put it away in a box in the bottom of a drawer in a corner of the basement. Or bury it.

“I’m telling you she meant nothing to me, honey, nothing at all!”

Barbara staggered closer and said, “No! This is wrong, Lydia!”

“I did it to save you!” she yelled back. “Now just…be saved!"

“I now pronounce you man and wife.”

The ring was on her finger.

She could barely breathe and she had imagined that maybe the ring would feel heavy, or cold, or something remotely symbolic. It just sat on her finger over the tacky red glove and she hardly felt anything at all. It was actually quite disappointing and anticlimactic.

Then came the kicker: “You may now kiss the bride.”

Her eyes flew wide open just in time to see his necrotic lips descending all puckered up and molding on the one side, and then he was kissing her and she was clenching her eyes and especially her lips shut. It seemed to go on forever – it was like kissing a frozen lamp post, the kind you get stuck to – she could barely hear someone shouting “Beetlejuice!” over and over through the roaring in her ears but it was too late, and he wasn’t going anywhere.

And then the slight pressure was gone, nearly tearing her lips off, and then somehow everything was indefinably different. So she opened her eyes to find herself still in his arms and all around them was a beach.

They were standing on a spur of gloriously white sand which she now felt seeping into her shoes. To the right the sun was sparkling over cobalt waves so clear she could see coral and rainbows of fish. To the left was a tropical jungle with exotic flowers and a waterfall in the distance. It was gorgeous. It was sunny.

She hated it.

“You bastard!” She whacked him about the head and shoulder with her bouquet and shoved at his chest, trying to get free. 

“Ow! Ow, ow! Will ya – ow – stop already!” He let go only to snatch the bouquet and toss it into the bushes. 

Deprived of her weapon, she resorted to pounding on his chest with her fists in an unfortunately clichéd manner that nevertheless made her feel slightly better when he flinched. “You lying bastard! You said you just wanted out!” 

He grabbed her wrists, raising a twisted eyebrow at her antics. “Honey…sweetie…sugar pie pumpkin muffin…What is the matter with you!”

She could feel her eyes start to burn with unshed tears, so she kicked him in the shin. “You didn’t even let me say goodbye!” she wailed.

“Oh, well, if that’s all,” he said, while a battered pay phone appeared in the air. “Why don’t you just give ‘em a ring while I go fix up our little honeymoon love shack!” And with that he planted a slobbery kiss on her wincing cheek and bounded off around the curve of the shore.

She scrubbed it off and hoped against hope that she had heard wrong and as little sense as it made he had said ‘tough shark’ or ‘glove attack,’ anything but ‘love shack.’

Sniffling, she yanked the phone off the hook and dialed 0, wondering if the thing could even work without any lines or wires. Hell, it was floating, so why not?

“Operator,” a bored voice issued forth from the receiver and smacked its gum.

Lydia felt like the boringly blue sky had opened up and a choir of black-clad angels descended and began to play melancholy mandolin music. A single, grateful tear slid down and plopped into her red tulle ruff.

“Like, hello?”

“Hello! I need to make a collect call!”

“State your name, please.”

“Lydia Deetz. No, wait, I just got married…it’s um, it’s…” Lydia realized she had no frickin’ clue if Beetlejuice had a last name. Or if that was his last name. Or if she was even going to take his last name, anyway! This wasn’t the stone age, for god’s sake.

“Congratulations! Now, like, hurry up. I don’t have all afterlife, here.”

“Then just Lydia Deetz, I guess.”

“And the person to whom you are directing the collect call?”

“Charles Deetz.”

She heard some papers rustling. “I have here a list of 87 Charles Deetzes. Do you know his death date?”

“What? No. I mean, he’s still alive. He was still alive five minutes ago!” Her knuckles were even paler than the rest of her as she clutched at the phone.

“I see. I’m, like, sorry, but you need a special exemption to call the living. Thank you, have a – “

“No! Wait, don’t hang up on me! He’s my father and I’ve been kidnapped by the ghost I just married and I really, really need to talk to him!”

“I dunno, I could get in some serious trouble for this…”

“Please! I’m desperate here! Couldn’t you just…oh! What about the Maitlands? Can I call them?”

“They’re dead?”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t see why not.”

Lydia sagged in relief.

“Lessee here…Maitlands…first names?”

“Adam and Barbara. They died this year, if that helps.”

“Aha! Yes, I’m connecting you now. Please wait.”

Meanwhile in the Deetz-Maitland residence, the fragile peace that had fallen over the rubble-strewn room was broken by a shrill ring-tone.

“Umm,” Charles said after the second ring. “Is somebody going to get that? I’m a little…tied up at the moment.” He smiled weakly and laughed once with absolutely no humor but with a good deal of coping mechanism.

Adam and Barbara, clinging to each other in despair, self-consciously let go and began poking around for the phone.

“It’s the pair of giant blue lips on the counter over there,” Charles helpfully supplied.

“Oh. Really?”

“The top comes off.”

Adam picked it up and spoke, not really expecting a response, seeing as he was a ghost and the living would not technically hear him. “Hello?”

“Mr. or Mrs. Maitland?”

“Adam Maitland speaking.” He put his hand over the receiver and loudly whispered, “It’s for us, Barbara!” His wife hurried over to stand next to him.

“Would you like to accept a collect call from one Lydia Deetz, recently married?”

“Who is it?” Barbara asked.

“It’s Lydia!”

“Oh, Adam!”

“Lydia?!” Charles exclaimed.

“Mmmmmmmrphmph!” Delia screamed.

“Sir? Would you like to accept the call?”

“Yes! Yes, very much so!”

“Just one moment, please.”

And the hold music played.

Then with a crackle of static that had Lydia falling to her knees in the belief that the call hadn’t gone through, the call went through.

“Lydia?”

“Mr. Maitland?”

“Lydia!”

“Oh, thank god!”

“Where are you?!”

“I don’t know. Some deserted tropical beach.” She glanced over the picture perfect scenery as if to find some clue she’d missed before – like a sign saying ‘[Insert Name Here] Beach: Tourists Welcome!’

“A…beach?”

“HE said we’re on our,” she grimaced, “honeymoon.”

“Honeymoon!” Then there were noises like two people scuffling over the phone and a muffled shout of fatherly indignation. Also a curious smothered screaming.

“Hello? Are you still there?”

She thought she heard someone say 'Let me talk to her' and 'Give it back,' and then Barbara was on the phone, a little (technically a lot) breathless.

“Lydia, honey, listen to me – if that pervert tries anything, you knee him right in his pants! He may have tricked you into marrying him, but that doesn’t mean you have to put up with it! We’re going straight to Juno to see if we can get this sham annulled, or a divorce, or, or something!”

“Really?” This thought sparkled through Lydia’s brain like a ray of appropriately gloomy glitter.

“Yes! Now, talk to your father. Adam and I have to go fix this right away!” She heard the phone being propped up.

“Dad?” She sniffled.

“Punkin, don’t worry! I know some great divorce lawyers that owe me a favor…”

It was then, in the face of her father’s well-meaning but extremely futile reassurance, that she began to cry in earnest. “Dad, I know I may not have told you this lately, but I love-“

Her only support, the pay phone, vanished, sending her face-first into the sand.

“-you,” she mumbled as she got up, wiping off sandy tear-tracks. What rotten timing. She thought it was just the sort of nasty trick a poltergeist might play, if she was ready to credit him with some sort of all-seeing eye that allowed him to know what people were doing when he wasn’t around, but she wasn’t because that was just too creepy.

Not ready to face the music just yet, or in fact ever, she kicked off the stupid sand-filled high heels and wandered off in the opposite direction of where Beetlejuice had gone.

The Maitlands had just gone through their chalked-in door in the attic, when the phone started shrilling its busy tone against Charles’ ear.

“Lydia…? Lydia!”

There was no answer.

It took three tries for him to shrug the beeping phone off his shoulder.

Delia said, “MMMMMMMPH!”

It took three minutes of struggling to resign himself to the fact that he was going to be stuck there for a while.

Delia finally got hoarse.

In three more minutes he broke down and just started talking about anything, just to shut out the annoying busy tone.

By the time the state troopers had arrived to check on the house after finding the hysterical Mr. and Mrs. Maxie Dean lost but unharmed out in the middle of nowhere, Charles and Delia had a very different perspective on life, love, and statuary.


	2. In Which There Are No Poisonous Frogs, or Even Sharks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lydia rejects her unwanted tropical paradise. Beetlejuice fumbles the whirlwind tour of their honeymoon love shack and learns that no means no. How will he make it up to his new bride?

After five minutes of walking under the hot tropical sun, Lydia had rearranged the veil with some hair pulling so that it covered her face. Apparently someone had never heard of hair spray and her hairstyle was being sustained entirely by knots. 

The gloves were peeled off with some difficulty. The ring stubbornly refused to be budged. She finally settled on simply dragging the glove around on one finger, but then the glove came off through the ring. And she had to tell herself that she wasn’t creeped out at all by the corpsey ghost ring for several minutes before she even remotely believed it. 

She eyed the shade of the jungle dubiously, not really willing to risk poisonous frogs or snakes or anything that any place he had brought them to might have.

Ten minutes later, Lydia came upon what was quite literally a shack. Hearing strange noises that almost sounded like power tools from within, she had hurried on, but momentarily she was right back where she had started, judging by the footprints in the sand. It was disturbing to realize that she was on a deserted island, not just a beach. A very small, utterly deserted island. Alone. With him.

On the other hand, a poisonous frog might just be her new best friend! 

She stomped determinedly through the underbrush towards the waterfall in the lee of the jungle – or at least she tried. The huge skirt of her awful red wedding dress kept getting stuck between palm trees. The layers and layers of tulle caught on everything from the tropical ferns to the occasional orchid, just to shake things up. Before she went two feet into the tree cover it was necessary to hike the hoopskirt supporting the fluff all the way up to her hips where it was possible to sort of tilt the metal rings. This let her slide between plants several feet apart. 

She sincerely and devoutly prayed that she found some kind of frog or something before Beetlejuice found her, because tromping through the greenery like this exposed everything on one side from the waist down. That included the polka-dotted, heart-shaped underwear that was definitely not what she had put on that morning. For her continued sanity, it was necessary not to think too hard about that.

Focused on finding a path that she could fit through, she didn’t notice her meandering bare feet had led her straight to where she did not want to go: around the back of the shack. The taller trees grew farther apart here, shading the ramshackle collection of walls leaning on each other like drunks stumbling home. 

When she stepped out of the shade onto the sand and blaring sun and lifted her eyes to see said shack, she was surprised enough that the skirt slipped from her numb fingers and snapped back into shape with a whoompf. 

How lucky that this happened mere seconds after Beetlejuice had exited the front door. Hearing the noise, he poked his head around back and was treated to the sight of a stunned, slightly sunburned Lydia instead of an eyeful. “There you are, sweetie! I was just about to go get ya!” Seizing her wrist he towed her around front, saying, “You weren’t trying to peek, now, were ya, pookie? You wouldn’t want to ruin the surprise!” 

He cackled and swept her up in his arms bridal style. Her entire field of vision was eclipsed by lipstick red netting as the hoop skirt shoved it in their faces. He spit some out and kicked open the door, which fell off the hinges.

She pulled the tulle from her eyes and stared open-mouthed at the horror beyond the lintel. A bordello could not have less taste. If asked, she’d lay even odds that he stole some of the furnishings from a sleazy motel. There was a hell of a lot of hot pink- and red-striped velvet draped crazily all over heart-shaped chintz furniture of a dubious nature, sprinkled with fringe and fuzzy handcuffs. There was more tackiness than a small shack should be able to contain without going supernova and condensing into a black hole tourist trap. The inside was at least ten times larger than the outside. Never again would she believe that Otho was the most god awful interior decorator in the world that had managed to master a basic color scheme.

He shrugged and said, “I’m a traditionalist at heart.” Then he snorted and guffawed.

Her hoop skirt got caught in the doorway as he attempted to carry her over the threshold. For a moment she thought she was saved as he pushed and heaved but couldn’t fit her through. Refusing to put her down no matter how much she struggled, he tried tilting her to the right, then the left. He tried holding her upside down. She flailed, kicking him in the face when he tried to peep. She was starting to sympathize with a Christmas tree her family had bought a few years ago that had taken up half their living room when the workmen had finally gotten it in through a window. The fact that it had then been partially denuded and decorated with hideous orange angels seemed like an ill omen of things to come.

“Um,” she said with blood rushing to her head, as a prelude to a hopefully convincing argument that he should just forget about her and go cavort in his love shack by himself. “Don’t you think-”

“No, no, I’ve got it for sure this time, honey!” He righted her and strode forward confidently, the door frame stretching out of the way. She made a hasty grab for the edges but they popped through the door before she could get a good grip. He planted her in the middle of the room, then turned to survey his handiwork with pride. While squeezing her to his side with an arm around her shoulders, he said grandly, “Here we are, snuggle bunny!”

More than slightly queasy, she considered shouting at him about having the sense to just widen the door in the first place. Since she hadn’t wanted to be able to fit through, she decided to leave it alone. Hopefully next time he might not remember that he was a poltergeist at all and he would have to leave her outside. Hopefully there would be no next time.

Turning to her and wrapping his other arm around her waist, he looked deeply into her cleavage. Thankfully it was covered by layers and layers of ruffles which he himself had put there. Bet he was rethinking that one now. He opened his mouth. 

Before he could say anything, she blurted out, “Why don’t you give me a tour?” Maybe that would stave off whatever inappropriate suggestion he was about to make.

He raised an angled eyebrow. “Okaaaay.” He let her waist go in a sweeping gesture that took in the room. “This is the living room.” She tried not to look at anything too closely, fearing for her virgin eyesight among the blinding and immoral furnishings.

With the arm around her shoulders that she had not been able to shake off, he marched her over to doorway that was only closed by a bead curtain. She was horrified to discover it was the bathroom. How was she supposed to pee or bathe or even brush her teeth if he could watch?! He said, “And this is the bathroom.” Then he dragged her unresponsive feet away from the maroon ceramic room to the second of the three doorways she could see.

“And this,” he announced grandiosely, “is the bedroom!” He shoved her towards the bead curtain. She was immensely glad that her dress wouldn’t fit through this doorway either, until she stumbled through it unencumbered by clothes at all, except for the ridiculous panties. 

Shrieking and trying to cover her chest with her hands, she almost missed him saying, “Why don’t I slip into something more comfortable, too?” Not allowing perverted poltergeists to ogle your goods shirtless is important. But there are some things humans were not meant to gaze upon and live. One of them is Beetlejuice half naked, never mind all naked. Catching her dad and her stepmom together was enough mental scarring for one lifetime. She clapped her hands over her eyes and left covering her chest to her elbows. 

“Put your clothes back on right now, or I’ll…I’ll….” Her short-circuiting brain failed to come up with anything remotely threatening to a ghost. Was it possible to castrate him? Or would he just put it back on, like Adam could tear off his head? As Beetlejuice's wife she could conceivably threaten to make him sleep on the couch, but that would imply she would at some point let him sleep with her, which she wouldn’t. Ever. She realized she didn’t know him well enough to pinpoint any weakness which she could exploit. One might think she’d be an expert on ghostly entities after reading the handbook, but the thing read more like stereo instructions.

He was laughing hard, slapping his thigh from the sound of it. She’d never felt more exposed. Emotionally, besides the obvious clothing deficiency. Goosebumps prickled over her body under his gaze. Her hackles rose as he whispered gloatingly in her ear, “Or you’ll what?” She’d thought he was still on the other side of the room. She was beginning to see a real disadvantage to not being able to see what he was doing.

But if he was behind her, she could open her eyes to make a run for it. The important thing was that he was not blocking the exit now. She’d grab a drape from the living room and escape into the jungle. It’d be easy without the hoopskirt. There were no poisonous frogs that she had seen, but maybe she could build a raft and row out under cover of darkness. Maybe she’d get eaten by a shark! That was a comforting thought.

He brushed her undone hair away from her neck and stuck his cold nose in the juncture of her shoulder. She jumped, brushing against something at her back which she immediately shied away from. He inhaled deeply despite her sheen of sweat. She took a deep breath and made a break for it – only to immediately run into Beetlejuice, standing in front of her. Her arms were trapped between their chests as he glommed onto her, and her eyes looked before she could slam them shut again. 

She was relieved to find that he was wearing the same blue plaid velour robe he’d had on when she met him. Sitting on the porch of a whorehouse. Gross! It still smelled like cheap perfume, smoke, decay, and something else that made her stomach clench.

Smirking, he let his hand slide down over her butt. Her eyes went wide and she froze. “No,” she managed to get out of a throat nearly paralyzed with dread.

He scowled but his hands stilled, gripping a bit tighter. “No?”

She swallowed hard and said, “No.”

Incredibly he backed off, muttering, “Whatever.” He stuffed his hands in his pockets and pouted, glaring at a corner. 

She dropped her arms to her sides in shock. When his eyes slid speculatively over to her chest a second later, she remembered her toplessness and whirled around. She had a feeling, however, that he was just staring (a little resentfully, it must be said) at her backside now instead. She frantically looked for something to cover up with. 

The bed, not an option to even think about before, was now a godsend. A satin-covered, anatomical-heart-shaped godsend. The aorta turned into a sort of headboard/bedside table. Practically running the five feet over, she snatched up the cover and swathed herself in its ratty flannel-backed folds. Determinedly, she did not think about where it had probably been.

Turning around to find him glaring at the corner again and scuffing the shag carpet with his moldy bare feet, she said, “We need to talk.”  
He turned the glare on her now that she didn’t have any interesting distractions visible. “No shit,” he said. He pulled a cigarette out of his pocket already lit and took a drag, breathing it out heavily through his nostrils. 

Lydia wrinkled her nose. Since it was one of the least offensive of his habits (the worst including vanishing her clothes without her permission), she let him smoke without a word. She was so tired of this shit. It had been a long day even before her best friends had almost been exorcised, she’d been strong-armed into marrying a ghost six centuries her senior, and dumped to wander in circles on a deserted island in an entirely different time zone. 

They looked at each other and then away as soon as their eyes met, and she debated just curling up in a corner and crying herself to sleep. Talking could wait, assuming he could keep his hands to himself for that long. But he probably couldn’t. This reprieve was some kind of miracle, sent to her because she had been such a good little goth and always remembered to say her prayers to the goddess of eyeliner, Siouxsie Sioux.

He was fidgeting, flipping the cigarette around in his hands. She wondered what was holding him back from saying whatever was on his mind. It couldn’t be that he was feeling bad about what he’d done, could it?

The uneasy silence was getting really oppressive.

He burst out with, “What the hell’s your problem now?” just as she blurted out, “You didn’t show me the kitchen.”

“The hell?!” His crazy eyebrows furrowed in bafflement and he violently tapped the ash off the end of his smoke. “You don’t wanna do it because…I haven’t shown you the kitchen?!” he said, starting in a strained quiet and ending up shouting.

“No, that’s not…I was just pointing it out.” She hugged her arms around herself miserably. “I don’t….”

“Don’t what?” He flicked his cigarette away while stalking towards her. “Don’t want me touching ya, my own little wifey?” He got right in her face, with his bright green eyes blazing into hers, his lips scraping over hers with every word. She couldn’t breathe, her eyes were as wide as saucers. “Don’t want my mouth on ya, don’t want…” He rasped out the dirtiest things she’d ever heard, a filthy monologue of everything that he could do to her, barely touching her at all. Her eyes got even wider.

She stumbled back and slammed her hand over his mouth, trying to cut off the fascinating obscenities. “No,” she denied shakily. “I don’t!” He dragged his alarmingly long tongue across her palm, making her leap back. She frantically scrubbed off the slobbery trail that wouldn’t stop tingling. “Ew!”

“You’re gonna hafta give in eventually,” he said, slamming a splayed hand onto an invisible wall over her shoulder and leaning over her. “Ya agreed to marry me, part and parcel, the whole shebang. That includes sealing the deal, if y’know what I mean. And I think ya do.” He leered and plucked at the satin coverlet where she was clutching it to her chest.

Narrowing her eyes, she straightened her spine. “That isn’t the truth, is it? I mean, if the marriage was incomplete, you’d have gone away when the Maitlands said your name.” She almost wished he’d prove her wrong, that the marriage could still be annulled or something, but she had a terrible inkling dripping through her brain. There would be no daring rescue by the Maitlands. There was nothing Juno could do. The deal was already signed, sealed, and sent off in triplicate, so to speak. “That kiss at the end of the ceremony did something, didn’t it?” she said. Just now, his lips against her own had had none of that stinging absolute freeze that had stuck them together. No, his mouth was just chilly and kind of chapped. She rubbed away the raw feeling he’d left behind.

He reared back and stuffed his hands in his pockets, with an incredulous smirk and a quirked eyebrow. “What? Nah,” he scoffed, “Would I lie ta ya, the apple a’ my eye, the light a’ my unlife, my very own precious sugar lips schnookums sweetie pie?”

“Yeah,” she said dryly, scrubbing at the circles under her eyes.

He scowled. “Geeze, give your hubby the benefit of the doubt, why don’t ya?”

“Besides the fact that I will never, ever call you ‘hubby,’ I am giving you the benefit of the doubt – in fact, I have so many doubts that it’s difficult to choose just one!” She took a step away, then turned back with a frustrated look. She started pacing, dragging the red and purple coverlet around like a patched royal cape. “Everything you say is a lie! It’s like…you lie just to keep in practice!”

“Why not?” he said, sounding genuinely puzzled.

Stopping stock still, she whirled around with a dramatic flare of the satin coverlet. “Why not? Why not?!”

He quirked his furrowed brow. “What the fuck’s wrong with hubby?”

She choked. “That’s…? You – because it’s stupid, that’s why.”

“It is not!”

“Another lie!”

“It’s a perfectly good pet name!”

“Pet names are stupid!”

“Ya didn’t fucking complain when I used ‘em for you!”

“I had bigger things to complain about, or I would have!”

“Dammit, there’s just no pleasin’ ya!” He threw up his hands in exasperation, and rolled his eyes for good measure.

“Obviously!” she huffed sulkily, breathing hard. A drop of sweat trickled down the side of her face.

“Fine! Great! Y’know what?” He made an expansive gesture. “I’m free. I can do whatever I want, and there’s not a single goddamn thing ya can do about it!” He stuffed his hands in his pockets and leaned over her while grinning nastily.

Shivering despite the intense heat smothering everything, she shrank back into the quilt shrouding her mostly naked body, her knuckles gripping whitely.

When she had said nothing after a moment, he jerked his head in a sharp, satisfied nod and marched out the door.

She stared wide-eyed. When he didn’t come back right away, she gave herself a shake and hurried after him. 

He was in the living room, pulling on a striped, fringed poncho over filthy grey pants and an open-necked shirt more dirt than white. He turned around when he heard her push aside the beaded curtain, and smirked at her as he jammed a sombrero on his head. “I’m going out. Don’t wait up, wife.”

And then he was gone.

She went and waved her arm through where he had been standing. Nothing was there. “He left me. That bastard left me here! While wearing a sombrero!” She stomped her foot, then yelled at the ceiling as if he could hear her wherever he was. “Fine! I hope you don’t come back at all!”  
There was, of course, no answer.

Shuffling back into the bedroom, she flung the stifling coverlet aside and wrapped up in a marginally cooler sheet, tying the ends together in a huge knot to make it stay on by itself. Then she flung herself face down on the bed and just screamed her heart out into a pillow which smelled excessively of cheap hotel. Eventually the screaming dissolved into tears, which softened into sleep.

She dreamed of Beetlejuice getting eaten by a sandworm, and smiled.

-SCENE BREAK-

He hadn’t left, of course. Beetlejuice might love having the last word, but he also wanted to be there if she started crying and saying, ‘no, please come back, don’t leave me alone,’ so that he could ‘comfort’ her. He had a great line picked out and everything. So it was extremely annoying to hear her declare that she didn’t want him to come back at all. He wasn’t quite sure what to make of her tantrum afterwards, but supposed it meant she was too stubborn to admit that she wanted him.

Intangible, he floated above her sleeping form with his invisible chin propped on his invisible fist, and wondered what was wrong with him. He should be gone already, vamoosed. See the world, find some liquor, and have some fun with more agreeable chicks. But...this one was his. She belonged to the numero uno, namely himself. And he hadn’t even had to try real hard to get her to marry him. She’d thought about his offer for less than a minute, hadn’t even tried to talk him down. She’d said ‘I do’ of her own free will, let him put the ring on her, hadn’t slapped him before he could kiss her or tried to bite him or knee him or a hundred other ways women had played hard to get with him before.

She had smacked him with her bouquet afterwards, but she’d explained that she was upset about not getting to say goodbye. He hadn’t thought she’d care that much. After all, if she’d gone with her first plan to get away from them by jumping in a river, she wouldn’t have gotten to chat a lot before being carted down into the paperwork mines. He thought she’d gotten over that after talking to them, but maybe not.

Or she could be upset that he didn’t show her the kitchen, though she denied that being the reason she wouldn’t put out. Maybe she’d expected more romancing first, a little wining and dining. Hell, most women expected that, even if they’d swear up and down they didn’t. He might have been just a teensy, weensy bit too hasty in his desire to finally (finally!) get a piece of Lydia. At least he hadn’t tried to get it on beachside like he’d wanted to. He winced, imagining the spectacular fight that would have been. Unless, y’know, she’d have liked that? It was probably romantic.

He stared at her like she had scribbled the answers to his questions on her skin somewhere in order to cheat on a personality test. His fingers itched to perform a full body search for said answers.

This was probably the most amount of time he’d ever spent figuring out how to get in a girl’s panties, and it was getting him nowhere fast. Usually he didn’t waste time on the prickly ones after they’d rebuffed him once or five times. And the easy ones…were easy. 

A successful con man is an excellent judge of character. They know exactly what buttons to push. Beetlejuice, on the other hand, had an impish tendency to mash them all because he suffered from Big Red Button Syndrome. You see a big red button; you push the big red button.

His dilemma here was that Lydia seemed to have an infinite array of shiny buttons and he had no idea what they did. However, there was a simple way to find out: Push every single one of the suckers!

Mind made up, he decisively thumped his invisible fist on his invisible palm, ignoring the fact that they went through each other when he was like this. He vanished again, this time from the vicinity of the island (and also the entire hemisphere the island was in). He had some errands to run.


	3. First Interlude in the Neitherworld

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Juno had her gimlet eye on the goings on in the Deetz-Maitland household -- so where was she during Beetlejuice and Lydia's wedding? Follow Adam and Barbara on their journey to ask her for help.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is like...bonus extended footage for the revamped story. Cheers!

The Maitlands stepped through the eerie glow on the other side of their doorway portal and into absolute chaos. The appointment window's sliding shutters were hanging off their rails. Paperwork was flying everywhere, squirting ink and biting with origami fangs. The strange inhabitants populating the waiting room were using the couches as barricades, and the hunter with the shrunken head perched on top of one taking pot shots.

A bullet winged Miss Argentina's hair and she shouted, "Watch where you're aiming, why don't you?!" A particularly large contract took her lapse of concentration as she patted her curls as the moment to strike. It spread its huge bat wings (folded out of ancillary clauses) and then dive-bombed. Expertly wielding her office supplies, she beat the animated paper back until she could staple it to a desk blotter. It thrashed wildly, catching her with a claw and opening a paper cut on her cheek.

The unlucky office workers who traveled by rope had been the first to be mobbed. They weren't putting up much of a fight now, and were cocooned in a mass of fluttering paper. Any attempt to cut them down was met with the vicious retaliation of a whole flock of memos.

"Maybe we should come back later?" Adam suggested to Barbara in an undertone as they pressed back against the bars of the one-way turnstile.


	4. In Which There Is Wooing From Afar

After the orange and blue sandworm had devoured Beetlejuice, she barely had time to smile before it ate her too. Inside its stomach was very dark and squishy, although strangely spacious and empty. Lydia knew that HE was in here somewhere, but she couldn’t find him.

“Hellooooooo?”

No answer.

The world tilted as the sandworm moved, and she fell off the floor onto the ceiling, which was more soft and bouncy than squishy. In fact, there were pillows and sheets. She wondered why the sandworm had swallowed a bed. Perhaps it needed glasses.

Wondering how long being digested was going to take, she fluffed a pillow and flopped down on it. She laid her chin on her hands in the traditional thinking pose of teenage girls everywhere.

A hand ghosted over her ankle, making her jump. She rolled onto her back to stare into the darkness, propped on her elbows. “Beetlejuice?”

“That’s once,” echoed around the room.

This time the phantom touch groped her chest, making her gasp. “Beetlejuice!”

“That’s twice!” He sounded closer, and for a blink of an eye she saw two glowing green orbs.

“Where are you?!” She sat up angrily.

An icy finger trailed down her spine and she realized she wasn’t wearing her usual nightgown, not to mention anything at all. 

“Say it! Just one more time…” he rumbled in her ear, but when she reached out no one was there.

“Show yourself!” she shouted.

He blew in her other ear. “Just say it!”

“Beetlejuice, stop-” 

And then his mouth was on hers and he was easing her down onto the pillow and sliding a knee between her thighs.

Sometime later two sandworms sitting around a tea table floated by. 

“Would you like a biscuit?” the blue and orange one said.

The green and pink one said, “Those aren’t biscuits, Ferdinand, they’re furniture! How many times do I have to tell you to put on your glasses?”

“No…ah! thanks,” Lydia said with some difficulty, as Beetlejuice had not stopped whatever he was doing down there that made her stomach fluttery and her knees weak.

A loud crash jerked her awake, wild-eyed and sweating.

Her dresser was now rocking to a stop against the wall, but there was no sign of the poltergeist who was surely responsible. She was all by her lonesome in the big bed.

Flopping back down, she flung her arm over her eyes to block out the overhead light. Her heartbeat throbbed at the juncture of her thighs, but the details of the incredibly weird dream were already hazy. Where the hell had it come from? She’d never even seen a sandworm, but doubted they were British and had tea time or nibbled on chaise lounges that had a sort of chocolate chip pattern.

She blamed Beetlejuice. It was all his fault, especially since he wasn’t there to deny it.

How long had she been asleep? There weren’t any windows or even a clock. It barely felt like any time at all. In any case, she was too wired to just go back to sleep now.

Getting up, she padded over to her dresser, mysteriously transplanted from her room in Winter River. She didn’t keep a lot of stuff in it and preferred to hang up her dresses, but it did contain several important things. Such as her p.j.’s and underwear, which might explain a certain ghost's interest in it. But also all of those things which had to be hidden from parents in an underwear drawer, like her chocolate stash or incense – and her camera equipment.  
If this was a peace offering, it was a good one.

Pulling open the bottom drawer, she dragged out her camera bag to check for damage due to its unorthodox method of delivery. She could have sworn she heard a disappointed huff from the ceiling. She was no longer certain that Beetlejuice was not there if she couldn’t see him. The Maitlands had never been able to go invisible to her, but she was dealing with an entirely different class of ghost here, wasn’t she? If there was a ghost trick to spy on unsuspecting women, this Grade A pervert probably knew it.

Deciding to test her theory, she casually set out her laciest black bra and black panties (all of her underwear was black – it made shopping difficult in a world full of white-wearing conformists). She also took out a shapeless black nightgown (in fact, all of her clothing, period, was black). Then she ever-so-nonchalantly undid the knot holding her sheet toga together.

Quickly throwing the sheet over her head like a tent, she changed into the new underwear underneath. There was a definite disappointed “Awwwwwwww…” coming from the direction of the ceiling.

Whirling around, she pointed dramatically at the source of the sound through the sheet. “Aha! I knew it! You jerk!”

Something tugged at the back of the sheet to slide it off her shoulders, but she quickly dropped her accusing pose to clutch the fabric to her chest. Turning again, expecting him to be there, she saw no one. In fact the room seemed to get ten degrees hotter, as if it wasn’t a sauna before. She warily pulled her nightgown on over the sheet, then let it drop to the floor where she kicked it into a pile with the comforter.

There was no sound of disappointment this time, and she told herself that she didn’t care that he’d left her alone again. Also the polka-dotted, heart-shaped panties that she had been wearing had disappeared, which she didn’t even want to think about.

A cacophony of noise suddenly erupted from the other room, like someone jerking open cupboards and slamming them closed. It was accompanied by muffled cursing and an, ‘I know I put it around here somewhere!’

Hurrying out of the bedroom, she headed for the one room her two-bit tour had not included: the kitchen. The noise stopped just as she pushed aside the beaded curtain. She was bombarded by images of pink and red farmyard animals. They were on the wallpaper, as paper-towel dispensers, as salt and pepper shakers, _everywhere_. However, the one animal there was no sign of was Beetlejuice. The cupboards, of which there were many, all stuck in odd corners, were all shut. 

Spooked by the little beady staring eyes, she cringed and was about to retreat when she noticed the flowers on the table. Gingerly walking into the room, she picked up the card. It read:

To my darling wife –  
I want to do you under the moonlight, or in candlelight,  
or sunlight, maybe as an afternoon delight…

It went on, in increasingly tiny handwriting. She tore it up and threw the pieces away in the gaping mouth of a pig shaped wastebasket. It looked at her reproachfully, and she almost expected it to spit the pieces back out. Apparently even inanimate objects found the words unpalatable.

The flowers, however, were a profusion of deep purple hyacinths and peonies stuck haphazardly around a single thornless black rose. She cradled the blooms in her hands and buried her nose in them. They smelled divine. It was strangely perceptive of him to give her flowers in some of her favorite non-colors. Didn’t they mean something, though? She’d looked it up once, fascinated with the concept. A thornless rose was love at first sight, but black meant death. Purple hyacinths were…I’m sorry? She didn’t believe a word of that. And peonies were…an aphrodisiac, ‘happy marriage.’ Of course he would learn the language of flowers in order to say, ‘let’s screw.’

One of the cupboards creaked open, apparently not shut all the way. Or had an invisible hand opened it? She went to close it, peeking inside first at the dishes emblazoned with various fowl, including heart-shaped chickens. Where in the world had he gotten those, and more importantly, _why_?

If he was still here, how could she tell? She didn’t want to have to take her clothes off all the time. And a cold spot in this climate was more like a slightly-less-hot spot.

She began taking the flowers one by one out of the hippo pitcher serving as an impromptu vase (at least it wasn’t another farm animal), and stripping off the tangled leaves into the garbage so they wouldn’t rot in the water. The pig didn’t seem any happier about this offering. She then arranged the flowers more carefully in the plastic hippo.

Hoping she sounded sincere, she said, “I wish Beetlejuice was here. I’d thank him with a _big kiss_.” She looked around expectantly, but no poltergeist materialized with arms wide open and moldy lips puckered. So she figured he wasn’t here anymore, although he obviously had been.

Shaking her head, she smelled the flowers one last time. She was surprisingly kind of hungry. Perhaps it wasn’t that surprising, considering the last time she ate was at least a day ago, but it had really begun to seem like the angry-sick pit in her stomach was here to stay and she’d never be hungry again. She grabbed a grapefruit from the bowl of fruit on the counter, next to an entire branch of banana bunches. Seriously, who was going to eat all of those? She hoped he liked bananas, ‘cause she didn’t. 

Watched by dozens of pairs of beady eyes, she left the kitchen with a shudder. She had to get out of this horror-fest for a while! Retrieving her camera bag she headed out onto the beach. It was dark out, and millions of unfamiliar stars twinkled overhead. A gibbous moon bathed everything in silver. 

Appreciating the scenery much more at night (not least because there was no sun), she walked until the light spilling out of the tumbledown shack was blotted out, then settled down in the sand.

Peeling the grapefruit, she threw the rind at the ocean. It felt good to throw something, even if it wasn’t at a certain poltergeist’s head like she wanted. The ocean didn’t care. Eating the sweet-sour wedges, she pondered when he’d show up next. When the fruit was gone her hands were too sticky for working with delicate equipment, so she headed back to the shack to wash her hands, taking the bag with her.

After a few steps she laughed and set the heavy bag back down. She could see it easily enough, black against the bleached out sand. And who was around to mess with it? Just in case, she said loudly, “If anything happens to my camera, I take a vow of celibacy.”

Nothing happened.

When she came back, hands cleaner even though there was no soap anywhere she looked, everything was like she left it. Did that mean he listened to her, or that…he just wasn’t here? She wasn’t sure if she should be relieved or worried.

Frowning a little, she set about the routine tasks of caring for her equipment. She took some pictures, trying to hold everything steady for the longer exposure night-time photography needed. If only she had her tripod, stuck in her closet back home along with all her real clothes. She doubted any of the pictures would turn out. 

When he came back, she’d have to ask if he’d go get a few things. Like soap.

Dawn crept slowly across the horizon. Without any further sign of him, her certainty that it would be 'when' he came back melted into a nebulous 'if.' After all, why would he come back? She was his wife, but she hadn’t been very accepting of his advances (make that: flat out refused). He’d probably gone looking for someone more agreeable. Never mind that he was dead and molding, whores could be paid and drunks were unobservant.

As the sun blazed across the sky, she took refuge in the shade of the jungle and finally got all the way to the waterfall, which she photographed. There were no frogs.

She took to saying outrageous things like, “Maybe I should go skinny-dipping!” She half hoped for and half dreaded a lecherous chuckle and an offer to join her. It was late afternoon when she announced, “I’m going to take a shower – now taking applicants for the position of back washer,” before she scrubbed off sweat, sand, dirt, sweaty sand, sandy dirt, and all the combinations thereof as best she could with water and a washcloth. 

She put on a clean nightgown and plain underwear, leaving the dirty clothes in a pile in the bathroom. She used the pink toothbrush from the Mrs. side of a labeled Mr. and Mrs. toothbrush holder (the Mr. toothbrush was conspicuously absent). There wasn’t any toothpaste so she just brushed extra long. She couldn’t find the light switch in the bedroom, either, so she climbed up on her dresser to unscrew the light bulb. It came out, but didn’t turn off. It gave off light, but it didn’t get hot. Finally she stuffed it under the pile of discarded bed things. Laying down, she turned her back on the light from the living room and tried to go to sleep.

He would come back, right? You didn’t stock up on bananas like that if you weren’t coming back to eat them. Or maybe it was so that he didn’t have to come back for weeks with new bananas! But then…you didn’t give a girl a bouquet, and then abandon her to a hellish tropical paradise, right?

God, she really wished he’d come back. She was bored to tears! There was only so much to do alone on a small deserted island, even with chocolate, incense, and a camera. Out loud, she said, “If Beetlejuice were here we’d make sweet, sweet...” She paused for a moment, waiting morosely, then yawned, “pancakes.”

-SCENE BREAK-

Pancakes.

Huh.

He’d heard it called an awful lot of things in his long existence, but that was a new one.

Losing his floating intangibility, he thumped down on the bed and sprawled out over most of it, leaving Lydia her small slice. Her deep, rhythmic breathing didn’t falter. She was out for the count (the living sure did need to sleep a lot). There would be no ‘pancakes’ tonight, but that was ok because his plan was working like a charm.

He hadn’t died yesterday. He’d known with every fiber of his deceitful soul that if he’d gone visible and planted one on her that morning, she’d have called him names and probably slapped him. Despite claiming _she_ wanted to kiss _him_. Whatta lie that was. It screamed “TRAP!” in flashing neon letters, especially after that stunt she’d pulled with the sheet. What kind of self-respecting woman changed under a bed sheet?! The boring kind, dammit. It had gotten extremely hard (if y’know what I mean) to ignore her siren calls as the day wore on. Most of the time he was out and about, picking up odds and ends and getting ready for what was going to be the most romantic, most candle-lit dinner of her entire life. But when he’d pop back in to drop something off, more careful now to do that when she wasn’t around, he just couldn’t leave without at least seeing what she was up to.

And hot damn, what she was up to! Licking her fingers clean as she ate fruit, her little pink tongue lapping up the juice. Wading in the waterfall pool with that damn black sack she was so fond of wearing tucked up around her hips – going skinny dipping! Ok, so he hadn’t watched that part, knowing damn well his self-control only went so far. There was just no way he’d be able to keep his hands off Lydia dripping wet, emerging from the cold water like a nymph, her pert…. Here he divulged into the detailed fantasy that had kept him busy for at least ten minutes earlier that day.

But tomorrow night would be better than surprising her in the shower or the pool or on the beach or in the kitchen. He was going to sweep her off her feet so high that she’d never come down and it’d be ‘pancakes’ morning, noon, and night for him! He tucked his wandering hands, creeping unbidden towards her sleeping form, securely in his crossed arms and drifted off for the two or three hours of sleep he indulged in. He’d be gone long before she woke up.


	5. In Which There Are No Pancakes

Lydia woke up and immediately yawned. Her head was fuzzy with more weird dreams and she’d slept so long she was tired again. There didn’t seem to be any reason to get up and face another day of boiling hot boredom, so she turned on her side in preparation of going back to sleep. Something crinkled.

Her eyelids popped back open. She extracted a piece of crumpled paper from where she’d been laying on it. It was a note.

He’d left her a note! That bastard hadn’t forgotten about her! Smoothing it out and skimming over the salutation in which he must have used every pet name in existence and then invented a few more, she reached the body which wasn’t even half as long:

Wear this for dinner tonight.  
Come out to the beach at dusk.  
Until then, STAY INSIDE.

She blinked. She raised an eyebrow. She frowned. She checked the back of the paper. Nope, that was it. She flopped back on the bed, tossing the note aside. Dinner? He was…asking her out? Without bothering to actually ask. Why did she have to stay inside? And what did he mean, wear this? She’d only seen the note.

With an indignant huff she sat back up and began to poke around. There was nothing under the pillows. She hadn’t bothered making the bed so there was also no comforter for anything to hide under. Leaning over the side, she saw a gift-wrapped box that must have fallen off. Warily picking it up by the squashed bow, she set it down on the bed. 

Sitting cross-legged, with her elbows on her knees and her chin on her fists, she stared at it. The present was about the size of a large shoe box. It wasn’t very heavy. The wrapping paper was shiny and black. The ribbon was shiny and silver. Not at all what, if she’d thought about it, she would have expected from him – which was that, if it was wrapped at all, it would be in newspaper or something and held together by massive wads of tape. Frankly, it looked like it came from a department store. It had that too-neat, too-perfect polish. She’d never seen any place that had black paper, though. Or that didn’t put the name of the store on everything.

Did she really want to know what Beetlejuice thought was appropriate evening wear? Visions of increasingly tiny, blindingly rainbow-hued cocktail dresses danced through her mind before she had the disconcerting notion pop in that he might think lingerie was ok.

Hell yes, she wanted to know!

Her deft fingers stripped off the ribbon and the paper, taking care not to damage either because she wanted to save them. The wrapping was worth keeping even if the actual present turned out to be horrible. 

She bit her lip as she lifted the black cardboard lid, her breath quickening. Wincing in anticipation of garish color as she peeled back the black tissue paper, her eyes widened upon seeing the dark contents of the box. Lifting out the folded garment on top, it was revealed to be a long dress made of the finest, flimsiest lace in a winding, fractal cobweb pattern that hurt the eyes when you examined it too closely. It was like holding a puff of air.

It would have taken a much stronger will than Lydia’s to resist trying it on. Ascetics who had been voluntarily living in the desert and eating lizards, puritans who disdained all earthly comforts, they all would have tried that dress on. And then they would have twirled around, in exactly the same way Lydia was, delighting in the way the feather-light fabric floated and swirled where the skirt of the dress flared out from the hips and the sleeves belled into a draping sweep. 

It fit like a dream – or a nightmare, the kind where you realize that everyone is pointing and staring at you because you’re naked. The dress was gorgeous. It was also completely transparent. Reluctantly, she took it off and dragged her old nightgown back on over her head. After the gossamer lace the soft cotton was like sandpaper. She didn’t even have something that she could layer under it. 

Heaving a disappointed sigh as she reverently laid the indecent dress out, she turned back to the box. There was a pair of strappy black sandals with impossibly high heels tucked away. And as she pulled out all the tissue she found a bundle of fabric no bigger than her fist that had slithered under everything. Lifting it out, it unraveled into a long black silk slip and her eyes prickled with tears. Until she noticed that this too was somewhat see-through.

Gritting her teeth, she carefully put the slip down next to the dress. It was too nice to twist into knots while she imagined throttling a perverted poltergeist. She had half a mind to stomp straight outside. He wanted her to stay inside, which meant he didn’t want her to see something outside, which meant he was probably setting something up, which meant he was out there. And she was going to, well…yell at him a lot.

Her feet had already taken her through the living room, and she wavered indecisively in the doorway. It was nearly noon and the sun was blazing down on the white sand. Heat waves distorted the weaving tide lines. The other half of her mind sensibly said that staying inside meant giving her sunburn a chance to recover before she turned as red as a lobster. It also pointed out that yelling at him made him leave her alone, which was all very well and good. But she didn’t want to be left alone here on this godforsaken island with nothing more interesting than tropical fish to stare at. And she’d never been terribly intrigued by tropical fish.

She had nothing to lose by doing what he said this time. With the reassurance that she could find him if she wanted to, she didn’t really want to go confront him right now. Especially not in her pajamas with bed hair and a sunburn.

Backing away from the sun and the sand and the waves, she turned and went to the kitchen. As she passed by the bedroom, she shot a longing glance at the dress laid out on the bed looking so deceptively innocent.

-SCENE BREAK-

Against her better judgment, Lydia was wearing the dress. The strappy shoes, however, were another story (in which the heroine twists her ankle). So when the sun sank below the horizon she set out barefoot, cleaned up as best she could with water and fingers for a comb. She’d tucked a purple peony over her ear because…well, you only got one chance at having your first date ever. Even if it didn’t count because he was an absolute jerk (and dead).

There was a trail of rose petals leading around back, black and soft as sin as she dared to walk on them. It ended as she rounded the corner of the shack. She paused there, shocked by the complete transformation of barren sand and a ramshackle wall into a little Italian outdoor café, lit with fairy lights and candles. It was as if someone had ripped a chunk out of Rome and transplanted it street, façade, and all.

Stepping cautiously onto the cobblestones, she was greeted by a tall, thin waiter with a penciled on mustache, his wide and disbelieving eyes darting back and forth. He gabbled at her in what she presumed was Italian, but it was clear enough that she was supposed to allow him to seat her at one of the charming little tables. He pulled out the chair for her and was about place a napkin on her lap when it was snatched away.

“Watch the hands, garcon – that’s my wife!” And then Beetlejuice proceeded to lay out the napkin, being very careful to smooth it down and feel up her thighs.

Scowling, she slapped his hands away. For a second there, she had thought she might -- maybe a tiny bit -- end up enjoying her date. But no.

He retreated as far as the other side of the table, where he sat and immediately latched onto her hands. Using them, he pulled her forward over the table, ostensibly so they could gaze into each other’s eyes. He didn’t bother with a napkin.

The waiter hovered uncertainly in the background, toying with a pad and pencil.

“Beetlejuice,” Lydia gritted out, unsuccessfully trying to disengage their hands.

“Yes, my lovely, luscious shnookums? And, if I do say so myself, that dress makes your ass look fan-fu-“

“Beetlejuice!” She gave up trying to free herself and settled for kicking his shin. She regretted not wearing the shoes, if only so she could have stomped on his feet with the very high heels.

He seemed to think that meant she wanted to play footsie. “Say my name again, y'know I love it! It’s got no power over me, and all thanks to you, honey. Go on, say it!” He grinned fiendishly, his eyes glittering with some kind of greed.

She squeezed her knees together to prevent his suddenly bare foot from going any higher. The combination of his callused sole scratching along her skin and the soft tickling of what had to be mold made her shiver. But she wouldn’t say anything to please him, even if his own name was the best curse word coming to mind right now.

The sound of a violin began drifting through the air. A swarthy Romany in brightly embroidered finery with a gold hoop in his ear strolled out playing to serenade them. He, also, looked somewhat confused as to what he was doing there, but shrugged and lost himself in the music.

“This kidnapping spree of yours has got to stop!” she said. Lydia was unsure if three people constituted a spree, but liked the sound of it.

“But, sweetie, I haven’t kidnapped any –“

“And don’t you ‘sweetie’ me! Put everyone back where you found them. Including me! I want to go home!” As she shouted rather petulantly at him, she realized it wasn’t even true. At least, about wanting to go home. If yanking somebody away from everything they knew without even asking first wasn’t kidnapping, she didn’t know what was. But for all that, she didn’t particularly want to go back. Back meant starting a new school and dealing with reality and parents (of which she seemed to have managed to acquire two more). She missed them, sure, but in a way it was easier to miss them than actually have to deal with them.

He’d finally let go and she’d lunged out of her chair in the passion of the moment, but she was too surprised to fight when red silk scarves appeared, as sinuous as snakes, and yanked her back down before trussing her up like a turkey. Her heart pounded in her throat. Looking anywhere but at Beetlejuice, her eyes lit on the waiter and the fiddler. “Help me! This guy’s a psycho who kidnapped me! And you. He kidnapped you too!” She knew the words didn’t mean anything to them, and what could they do anyway, but damn it she had to try! She tugged on her restraints, nearly tipping over.

“Pookie. Muffin. Cupcake. Angel-puss.” Beetlejuice steepled his fingers together, putting on an absurdly serious expression.

“Angel-p…?” Her brow crumpled in disgusted confusion. How could that be angelic?

He placed a grimy finger over her lips. “Shh, shh. Ever hear the phrase, ‘pass day-vant lay dome’s ticks’?” A beret perched jauntily on top of his out of control hair, and his suit had changed into dark pants and a horizontally striped shirt, with a short red scarf tied around his neck. He twirled a little mustache with his free hand and laughed. “Onhonhon!”

She immediately threw off his finger by ducking her head, keeping her mouth firmly shut until she managed to wipe it off on her shoulder. She sputtered a while before she spit out, “What’s that supposed to mean? Is that some kind of French?”

But he was already off and chatting in a low voice (was that English either?) to those two oblivious idiots who didn’t even seem to realize anything was abnormal. He had his arms around their shoulders (much to their distaste) and was leading them a little distance away and…was he tipping them?! And then they disappeared, and she was alone once more with Beetlejuice.

Well, that meant he was listening to her, right? Sort of.

-SCENE BREAK-

Elsewhere in Rome, Gianni found himself standing in a crater where the café he worked at should have been. There was some kind of gypsy a few feet away, and he didn’t remember anything much since that weird guy with greenish blonde hair had swept into the kitchen and refused to get out until the owner Carlotta agreed to let him rent the whole place for a date.

There was a wad of cash in his hand and if he concentrated really hard he could almost remember that same weird guy way too close and smelling like flooding catacombs and looking like he’d crawled out of one shoving it at him under some palm trees, and there was moonlit sand and a girl who looked way too young to be that guy’s wife like he said and dio santo! This just wasn’t happening!

The gypsy clapped him on the shoulder and offered him a smoke, and as he leaned against one of the exposed pipes that occasionally spurted water like a giant, careless invisible thumb was holding the broken top shut, he tried desperately not to think any more. The cash in any case went into his pocket, which he made sure to watch carefully around a gypsy’s light fingers.

There must have been some kind of…gas leak, or something, hallucination-inducing gas that blew up the café and was it safe to be smoking? Eh. He hadn’t blown up yet.

-SCENE BREAK-

She made a pretty picture from way over here, where he’d booted those two useless schmucks outta his island. All pale skin and lace and tight red scarves highlighting her slight curves. He swiped a hand over his stubble and stared at her until she squirmed.

The plan had gone to shit practically the second she showed up. How did she keep doing this to him? He was gonna wait to show himself and make the jewelry box appear on her place setting to soften her up a little first, then in a completely suave and debonair fashion he was gonna appear with some more flowers, which she’d see before him and go ‘ooo’ and she’d want him so bad but he’d make her wait until dessert.

Then that lousy waiter just had to go and violate her personal space, and dammit, that was his prerogative! Then the romantic music had backfired – that damn gypsy had no sense ‘a timing.

“Y’know, if ya want ta have me all ta yourself, all ya gotta do is ask,” he finally said, tossing off a devil-may-care grin.

She pulled in a deep breath, getting ready to yell at him…. Any minute now, she’d let him have it again. Any minute. But the seconds ticked by and she didn’t, her cheeks puffed out and her face scrunched up like she couldn’t even wrap her pretty little head around the enormity of what he’d done wrong. Then she let all that air out in a long sigh and wriggled around so her back was facing him. And it took him a minute to recover from the wriggling before he realized what she was doing now.

She was ignoring him! No. Uh-uh. This could not be allowed to continue. He started forward. It was time to bring out the Big Guns. He might even have to say…It. His stride faltered. Was he really going to go through with this?

One look at Lydia decided it. Yes. He was going to do anything it took to do his wife.

He ripped off the beret and tossed it aside. Marching to her side, he fell gracelessly to his knees and spun the chair around so they were face to face. She turned the other way, he grabbed her knees and rotated her back. Struggling against her bonds, she stubbornly glared at a point about a foot above and two to the left of his ear.

“Lydia-baby,” he said, voice thick. His thumbs drifted over her knees as he concentrated on sounding good and sorry. They were pretty damn sexy knees.

She stiffened and her eyes flickered in his direction.

Yes! He knew she couldn’t stay mad at him. He was the most eligible bachelor since Valentino crossed over, and only the fact that he was all hitched up and saving all his loving for Lydia now changed that. “I know I ain’t been the kinda man ya want me ta be, but I can change! Just gimme a chance!”

“I was beginning to think you didn’t even know my name,” she said frostily, face still averted.

“What? Honey, of course I know your name! Got it written on my heart, see?” He pulled down the neck of his striped shirt to thump the grimy, arrow-struck heart tattoo a little to the right of his sternum, emblazoned with a banner reading ‘Lydia.’

She tried to sneak a look, but he caught her at it and returned the favor ten-fold. Her breath caught but she huffed and tilted her head to stare at the stars, pink dusting her cheeks. “Since you know it, use it! Quit calling me ridiculous things!”

“Hell, Lyds, okay, alright?” He threw his hands up. Crazy broad! He was trying to be sweet to her, and all she did was throw it back in his face!

“That’s better. I guess,” she muttered.

It was now or never. He had to strike fast while she in a good mood (relatively speaking)! “I got you a little something….” He pulled up a bouquet, only to frown in dismayed surprise at it. The flowers had come out kind of twisted, just like his whole goddamn plan had bent out of shape for her. The red roses were dead and dry and blackened. Great.

Her eyes lit up and she actually sort of smiled.

Great! Yeah, he’d done that on purpose. He knew she liked that dark shit.

Her hands twitched towards the bouquet but couldn’t move far. Then she gave an exasperated huff and said, “Do you mind?” She thrust her chest out and nodded towards it meaningfully.

No, he didn’t mind, not at all, he’d be happy to oblige…then he realized, a hand halfway to its target, that she was probably talking about the scarves he’d tied her up with to keep her from causing a scene (he had a reputation as a ladies’ man to uphold, here). In retrospect…yes, that had probably been his best idea ever. She was much more agreeable this way, all wrapped up in red like a present. His hand changed direction completely unnoticeably (she noticed) to pull on the red silk bindings. They fell off into nothing and he took a moment of silence to mourn their passing. Maybe she’d agree to let him tie her up again later…

Shaking off the last wisps of her restraints, Lydia eagerly reached for the dead roses. The stems crackled under her fingers as she carefully brought them to her nose, smelling the delicate, dusty musk that still clung to the petals. She smiled up at him bent over the flowers and said, “They’re lovely.” But the breath of her voice was too much for them, and half the petals blew free. Her little gasp of dismay scattered the rest.

“I’ll get ya some more,” Beetlejuice hurriedly said. “Armfuls. So many you’ll need four sets of arms! I’ll-”

She laughed and set the stems on the table, brushing off her dress. “Are you planning on giving me four sets of arms, too? Or are you just going to bury me in a mound of roses?”

He set back a little and pursed his lips. He coughed into his fist, as if to clear his throat, followed up by terrible wet hacking noises. “Ahem. Nah. I’m not going to bury ya. Anyway, I got ya something else, too.” He reached for something at his side that wasn’t there, and frantically patted his sides for a minute until his face cleared and he snapped his fingers, suddenly wearing his suit coat again. He pulled a large jewelry box out of one pocket a corner at a time until it popped out of the smaller opening.

Lydia took it with some trepidation. Half-expecting some Mardi Gras beads and a request that she flash him, and half-hoping for something that matched the dress, she cracked it open. The rusty hinges groaned.

She blinked. It was a necklace. Or neck armor. One of the two. Huge gold links were studded with brown to orange gems, topaz maybe, with a gigantic centerpiece of amber. There was a big, hairy, tiger-striped spider caught inside the stone.

Well, it had a spider in it? That was – interesting. She had to forcefully stop her brain from injecting ‘gaudy gaudy gaudy godawful gaudy’ into everything she thought about it. “It’s nice,” she finally said, looking up at him.

“Nice?” he parroted, as if uncomprehendingly. “Nice?”

Whoops. It was probably godawful expensive, too. Tackiness knew no price range. She was about to try to make it up to him, when she wondered why she was bothering. For that matter, why was he bothering?

She stared down at the necklace, frowning. Lydia had a lot of practice accepting expensive, poorly thought out gifts. For instance, when her dad promised to come see her photography displayed in a school art show but never made it because of work. That reason alone had netted her terrible French perfume, a tennis bracelet, horse-riding lessons, and a fluffy pink dress two sizes too large. Her father tried. She knew he picked out all the gifts himself, and never just gave her gift cards (which would arguably be more useful). He really, really tried.

She shut the lid and firmly said, “It’s nice.” She looked up again, prepared to deal with any fallout. Only there wasn’t any. Beetlejuice looked sort of…bemused, if anything. “I like the spider,” she tried.

“O-kay,” he said.

They sat there for a moment.

“Aren’t your knees going numb, kneeling on the floor like that?”

“Nope! Ghost, remember?”

How could she forget? His eyes literally glowed in the dark. “Sit on a chair anyway, would you?” She wanted to add, 'and stop looking at me like that.' However, she felt reluctant to break the sort of unspoken truce they’d reached, wherein she didn’t shout and call him names, and he didn’t abandon her for days or tie her up.

“Whatever,” he said and sat on his chair.

Her stomach gurgled emptily. “Are we actually going to eat dinner? ‘Cause you kind of got rid of the waiter.”

“That’s right!” He slapped his thigh. “You bet I did, that no good…” He trailed off muttering about ‘trying to lay hands on MY wife’ and ‘lucky to have all his limbs.' “Don’t need that jerkwad, anyway. I already told the cook to prepare a very special menu.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Then why…?”

“For the ambiance! Ya think you’d appreciate it more, being a chick.” He saw her eyebrow and raised her a sardonic stare.

“Don’t be a sexist pig,” she retorted dryly.

“Hey, I just call it like I see it. Can’t fault me for having a goddamned opinion.”

“Can too. But how is this ‘very special menu’ supposed to get from there to here?” She pointed out these important things in her most ennui-filled voice. It had never failed in annoying those whom she used it on. If he wasn’t going to abide by the unspoken rules of their unspoken truce, neither was she.

“Why don’t you put that sass-talking mouth of yours to better use?” He leered at her.

She gasped. “You-!”

“Grub’s up.” He nodded down at the table, where there were now two bowls of chicken noodle soup, and grinned. “What did you think I was talking about? Although it’s not grubs, it’ll warm you up if you catch my drift,” he said, eyebrows waggling.

“It’s soup,” she said flatly.

He grabbed his spoon and started slurping it down, smacking his lips and making appreciative noises. “Yeah, and? Are you going to eat or not?” He stopped spooning it up for a second to point the spoon at her bowl.

After a moment, she picked up her spoon and started eating in a manner that might horrify teachers of etiquette but otherwise was the very picture of demure manners, at least compared to him. “It’s just, the way you were talking I expected oysters or something.”

He made a questioning noise, his mouth full of noodles.

“Like an aphrodisiac?”

He gulped down the noodles and said, “Whaddaya talking about – chicken noodle soup is one a those!”

She dropped her spoon. “Are you serious? You’ve gotta be kidding me! In what freaking century?”

“I guess it would’ve been around the…15th? 16th? Or something like that.” He scratched his stubble thoughtfully then went back to draining his soup bowl.

“Oh.” She shrugged and picked up her bowl and drank the broth (but daintily!). It was good. Especially after nothing but fruit for two days. But now she was curious about what other weird facts might be haphazardly stuffed in her companion’s brain, in the tiny nooks and crannies between all the porn.

Then there was pasta and wine, and veal and wine, and more terrible table manners. Dessert was chocolate fondue – and wine. Lydia had just the one strawberry which she kept licking the chocolate off of (she was pretty sick of fruit), but Beetlejuice really didn’t seem to mind. There was conversation and laughter, as she asked him about the places he’d been and the people he’d terrified and he told her outrageous stories. And there was the wine, which Lydia had no qualms about drinking (even though she was underage) for several reasons (ridiculous reasons, but reasons). She never got to at home and the more she drank, the less repulsive Beetlejuice seemed. At the moment, he was verging on ‘average,’ which was had taken nearly a whole bottle to herself.

But in the end, the drink and the late hour overcame her. She nodded off with her chin propped up on her fist, listening to a tall tale about impersonating a bishop to foil the exorcism of a haunted outhouse. A bit of chocolate was smeared on her chin.

When she didn’t laugh at what he, personally, thought was the funniest part of the whole story, he glanced over and his gesticulating arms fell to his sides. “Well, damn.” Putting her to sleep certainly wasn’t part of the plan.


	6. In Which They Have An Important conversation About Doors

Shifting restlessly in the tropical heat, Lydia rolled over and threw a leg on top of a pleasantly cool pillow. She snuggled into the lumpy, but more importantly, cold pillow and sighed, slipping deeper into sleep.

Until it moved and said, “Oooh, yeah, baby!”

Her eyes snapped open. “Beetlejuice!” 

“That’s right, say my name!” 

His deep laugh reverberated through her ear, lying on his chest. Her hands were fisted in his none-too-clean shirt, and it was only her profound relief that he hadn’t left her to rot in this hellhole of an island paradise, and was wearing a shirt at all, that locked the incipient shriek in her throat. Her eyes tracked up to his face. He was leering, his hands leisurely folded behind his head. He thrust his hips against her leg again, rubbing his belly and something unholy against her inner thigh. 

Her shocky paralysis lifted as her toes involuntarily curled and a shudder wracked through her body, making every single hair stand on end. Bolting upright, she fired off, “I-have-to-go-to-the-bathroom!” as he reached for her.

Leaping off the bed, she dashed through two beaded curtains and stumbled to a stop on maroon tile. She really needed a proper door, so she could slam it closed and collapse against it, gasping. Bracing herself with her hands on her knees and panting just wasn’t the same. It lacked drama, and there was no DOOR. A bead curtain isn’t exactly Fort Knox level protection. Quickly taking stock, she noted that she was still wearing her dress and deduced that she fell asleep during dessert. He must have carried her to bed – and then climbed in with her, which pretty much negated any bonus points for caring. 

How long could she hide out in here before he came looking? She mentally cursed her lame excuse. It the split second it had taken to come up with, it had seemed like a great idea. She had discovered that being alone was incredibly boring when you had no one to pointedly be alone AT, so she didn’t want to start a big fight and drive him off (the camaraderie they’d shared at dinner last night had nothing at all to do with it, of course). He might actually just abandon her here! And although just telling him 'no' had worked, it seemed to piss him off pretty badly. She hated to admit it, but he was terrifying when he wanted to be. 

It was, she thought, something about the way his unearthly green eyes glared out of the sunken pits under his slashing eyebrows. They were, while clearly the eyes of a dead man, anything but dead - they burned into her. The rest of him was laughable – he had a beer belly, for god’s sake. The sinewy strength of his hands didn’t mean anything, seeing as they were merely part of an insubstantial, spectral reflection of his mental self-image, i.e. his ghost. And she wasn’t scared of ghosts.

The pallor of his skin wasn’t that disconcerting (she was nearly as pale). The mold, crazy hair, and dirt were nothing new to someone who had lived in New York and saw hobos all the time (although they generally just had a skin disease, not actual mold). And, although the thought of a hobo wanting to make out with her was certainly disgusting by a factor of ten thousand, it did not elicit fear. Hobos, however delusional they were, could not actually turn into a giant snake and toss her father over the stair railing.

Another reason for really needing a door presented itself. Now that she’d mentioned it, she actually did have to go, but not if just anyone, meaning HIM, could walk by and see her business. Biting her lip and squeezing her knees together, she abandoned her inner monologue of all the little reasons he wasn’t actually scary, and the really big reason that he really was, to search desperately for a solution to the increasing problem of her bladder.

Finally, inspiration struck.

Beetlejuice had been content to wait for Lydia to come back to bed in the self-assured assumption that now she had felt his sexiness she couldn’t resist (she could). Any minute now, she’d come back. Any minute. He hadn’t felt the call of nature in centuries, being firmly stuck in the realm of the supernatural, but should it be taking this long?

Hearing odd thumping and scraping noises from the living room, he wandered out there, one angled eyebrow raised. The other one inched upwards at the sight of Lydia dragging the unhinged front door across the room. The shoulder of her dress slipped down as she took a deep breath and heaved at the oversized wooden plank. He silently urged it to slip just a little more…. Out loud he said, “Honey, what are you doin’?”

She jumped and fumbled the door. It hit the ground with a thud, narrowly avoiding her feet. “Um.” Turning her face to him, she smiled a bright, entirely fake smile.

“I thought you were, y’know, takin’ a piss?” He jerked a thumb at the toilet, visible through the beaded curtain.

She winced. “I was. I am! I just need to put up this door.”

“What for?”

“I can’t go if you’re watching!” she snapped. He could be so clueless! And inconsiderate.

“I wasn’t!” He waved away the accusation, mentally adding, ‘this time.’ And what the hell was the big deal, anyway? He didn’t remember broads being nearly as uptight about this back when he was alive. Everybody just did it. None a’ this namby pamby ‘going to powder their noses’ and indoor plumbing. He personally didn’t see the point. Damn good way to frighten the living daylights outta somebody, though – they never expected the porcelain throne to grow fangs and take a bite when they tried to sit down.

Lydia struggled with a pithy retort about how likely it was that he wouldn’t act like a voyeuristic pervert when given half a chance, which was zero percent. She reminded herself that arguing, while it might make her feel better now, would make her feel a lot worse when he stranded her alone on this godforsaken island without even a volleyball named Wilson to keep her company. Taking a deep breath, she ground out, “I would just prefer having a real door. So if you don’t mind?” She bent over to heave at the door again.

His head tilted to the side as he watched the fantastic things it did her to her…assets. He could juice the door into place in a jiffy, but somehow he didn’t feel real motivated to do so. He pulled out a smoke and settled in to watch the show. When she stubbed her big toe the third time in a row, however, he started, “Lyds, why don’t you-“

“I just want a door! Is that so much to ask?” She let the wood fall in a clatter.

“I was gonna offer to put it up for ya, but if ya don’t want my help…” He turned to go back in the bedroom and smirked.

“Wait!” She hurried over to grab his elbow.

He looked at her, wiping the smirk off his face before she saw it. “Yes, dear?”

“Please,” she said, staring at her dusty bare feet.

Flicking his cigarette away into the ether, he reached out and lifted her chin.

She stared at him with those big, dark eyes.

“Aw, hell.” He twitched his nose at the door and it was done.

A startled, shy smile broke out over her face and it was like the first time he’d seen the sun again on his numerous attempts to escape the Neitherworld. As she said, “Thanks,” and slipped off to the bathroom and closed the newly installed door, he tried his damndest to shake off the old memory of sudden light and alien warmth, wondering what the hell was wrong with him. He hadn’t even tried to kiss her!

Angrily, he summoned another cig and stomped outside. The sky was awash in gold and pink, the sun rising in a haze of red and orange clouds. He cursed and debated stomping back inside. He should be in the bathroom with Lydia right now, enjoying her company. It’s not like a door could actually stop him. And just because she had noticed he was there that once didn’t mean he sucked at being invisible. But she’d probably catch him. And then she’d yell – or worse, not yell. Saint Brigid’s britches, he just didn’t want to deal with it. He glared at the sun until storm clouds obscured the horizon and rain lashed the beach.

And he was not making excuses for himself.


	7. In Which They Fight Over Breakfast

Beetlejuice was startled out of his funk by a slight hand tugging on his sleeve. He then noticed someone was shouting at him, the words being washed away by the pouring rain.

“-pancakes!”

What?

“I made pancakes!”

What?! “Without me?” he roared. The rain stopped instantly, thunder rolling as lightning crackled in the pitch black sky.

“Come in for breakfast!” Lydia shouted into the sudden silence. Coughing a bit into her fist, she continued in a much quieter voice. “I made pancakes.”

He flung down his unlit, soaked-through cigarette. “How could you do that without me?!”

In Lydia’s opinion, he didn’t have to sound so aggrieved about what was apparently a bout of illicit cooking. “I didn’t think you’d mind,” she said. After all, it’s not like he knew that she probably should have taken Home Ec. instead of Shop class….

“Mind? Why would I mind?! My wife is only going around making ‘pancakes’ without even asking if I’d like to watch!” Grabbing her by the arms, he turned her around and gave her a push towards the shack. “March your ass back in there and start over!”

Lydia balked, but he inexorably maneuvered her back inside. Once over the threshold she snapped, “Fine! I’ll start over, but you have to help!” and stomped towards the kitchen.

His eyes widening, he said, “In there?” Visions were filling his head, visions of locations and positions, visions that came to a screeching halt as soon as he saw the disaster area that used to be a kitchen. He liked a good mess, but this…! 

His eyes were drawn to the center of the storm. The kitchen table was the only flat surface to escape being piled high with various dirty bowls, pans, and utensils. On the table was laid out what could charitably be called breakfast, if you liked your bacon a crispy black, your scrambled eggs studded with bits of shell and somehow gelatinously separated into swirls of half-cooked yolk and browned whites, and your pancakes…the pancakes looked okay, actually. And she’d gone to the effort of setting two place settings, and squeezing some fresh orange juice, which accounted for the splatter marks all over one wall and part of the ceiling. He honestly didn’t know what to say.

She glared at him suspiciously through the curtain of her dark hair, standing in the middle of the mess with her arms crossed defiantly, wearing yet another black sack, this time begrimed with floury handprints. “Where else would I cook, the living room? Make a bonfire out of all that hideous pink and red striped chintz? Barbecue over the flaming remains of your fashion sense?”

He raised a twisted eyebrow and rubbed his stubble mock-thoughtfully. “That’s not a bad idea. S’not like ya could’ve done any worse. Ya really call this cooking?” He poked the pile of bacon. It crumbled into a pile of charcoal with a whoosh.

Splat! Suddenly his vision was obscured by…pancake batter? He licked his lips and tasted the goo that was currently dribbling down through his hair, over his face, and into the collar of his shirt. Yup. Pancake batter. It wasn’t half bad, either. He blinked his eyes clear. And there was Lydia, holding a formerly full bowl in a defensive position, looking both angry, amused, and afraid all at once somehow. It was probably the way the fire in her eyes collided with the way her mouth twitched between a gloating smirk and a horrified grimace.

He wiped his hand down his face, flicking the batter off to the side. The glow in his green eyes brightened as his lips parted in a manic smile that just kept going, showing all his teeth and then finding a few more, quite sharp and pointy. “Two can play at that game, my little sugar lump!” A dramatic gesture had two more bowls filled with pancake batter (just how much of the stuff had she mixed up, anyway?) rising into the air and converging on Lydia.

Her eyes got huge and she dove under the table with a shriek that almost sounded like…laughter. Gaining cover didn’t actually help her though, he just floated the batter-filled bowls underneath the table and dumped them on her. With a yelp that definitely sounded like a yelp (the kind someone makes when they are suddenly covered in something cold and sticky), she shot up on the other side of the table, the bowl that was in her hands stuck on her head like a helmet, leaving her face alone not completely covered in batter. Now she had a white paper sack in her hands.

“If you like sugar so much, why don’t you have some!” she said and hurled the sack at him with pinpoint accuracy. It struck him square in the chest and burst into a cloud of flour which filled the room. 

He stumbled to the side in the white haze, finally completing his attempt to dodge, and yelled through a coughing fit, “That wasn’t sugar! No wonder you’re a terrible cook!” Squinting, he could barely make out Lydia’s lithe form lunging for another, nearly identical, white paper sack on the counter.

“So sue me!” she retorted wittily as she actually clambered up onto the counter to drop the sugar on his head, sending pans and spatulas and an egg carton clattering to the floor.

This time he caught the sack with one hand and pulled Lydia’s ankle with the other, tripping her off the counter. Adroitly catching Lydia too, he slung her down on the floor and proceeded to pour the sugar down her nightgown. He cackled. 

She squirmed and tried to pry his fingers off her clothes or roll out of the line of fire. She even tried kicking him, but he sat on her legs. So finally, panting, she gasped, “Stop! Stop! Uncle! I give up!” and got a mouthful of sugar for her trouble before he put it down.

Waggling his eyebrows, he said, “Ya give up…what? ‘Cause I got a few ideas if you don’t!” And he leaned down and licked a glittery trail of sugar that traced her collarbone. She nearly choked on the half dissolved wad of sugar in her mouth. His tongue was wet and cool and she told herself it was not that much different than getting splattered with pancake batter. Then he did this sort of swirly thing with his tongue and gently sucked which made it completely different and she had to reach out to grab onto something as her spine arched and her head dropped back giving him more room to work, completely without her consent. Her hand hit the egg carton as she finally finished swallowing the sugar filling her mouth, and she smiled deviously.

Beetlejuice seemed to have finally reached the heaven bit of 'died and gone to,' etc. Lydia, rather than making some ridiculous maidenly protest denying what he knew that she totally wanted, was in fact tugging at his tie and undoing his shirt buttons! Balanced impossibly leaning over Lydia, he dragged his hands up from her waist until his thumbs rested just under her breasts… 

Crack! He sat up on her legs and stared at his own chest for once. She’d smashed two eggs on his sternum that were now oozing down inside his unbuttoned shirt. Completely deadpan, he said, “That is not how you make scrambled eggs.”

“Really? Nobody ever showed me how.” She innocently fluttered her eyelashes before her mask cracked and she started giggling.

For a moment more his face remained frozen, before he started laughing so hard one of his eyeballs accidentally came out and he had to pop it back in, cursing. Lydia stopped and stared at him for a second, making him feel slightly self-conscious, something he had forgotten he could feel. It wasn’t like he could help it – rotting corpse here! Sometimes things just fell apart!

Then she snorted, and had to clap her hands over her mouth to stifle her laughter, and he was laughing again too. She got out from under him and stood up. He let her, and even let her offer him a hand, as if she could actually lift him up off the floor. He floated to his feet.

She glanced at their hands, still casually wrapped together, then she looked away. “So…” she began, then looked back at him out of the corner of her eye. “Will you teach me how to make scrambled eggs? Since you’re obviously an expert, and all.”

He stared off into the distance, in a region that happened to be nearby her hips where the wet cotton was clinging like a second skin. Finally, just as she was losing her patience, he shrugged and said, “Sure, Lyds.”

So they re-made breakfast together. He, of course, took every opportunity to accidentally brush against inappropriate parts of her anatomy and hold her in his arms to ostensibly guide her hands, but he didn’t do anything too obvious. She swatted him away and accidentally-on-purpose elbowed him in the gut, but she didn’t really hit him that hard.

The eggs, as they sat together at the table and ate them, were delicious. And surprisingly so were the pancakes which she had made. The orange juice was pulpy, but passable. There was no bacon, because Lydia burnt it all.

“Y’know, the original plan was that I’d be bringing ya breakfast in bed right about now. When ya got too tired to keep goin’,” Beetlejuice leeringly mused as he finished off the last pancake.

Frustrated, she stared at his mouth. She had wanted that pancake! Sighing and wiping syrup off her mouth with her hand, she pushed her chair back and stood up. “Instead, why don’t you clean up the kitchen? I’m too tired to do it. ‘Kay-thanks-bye!” And with that, she dashed out of the kitchen, stopping only momentarily at the door, holding back the beaded curtain and smiling saucily, to say, “I’m going for a swim.” She thought it would take him a while and she could get cleaned up in peace. She really ought to have known better by then.

Flabbergasted by the notion that he would clean anything, it took him a second to leap through the table and chase after her. Turning on his back as he swam through the air, he held up his thumb, pointed his fore finger at the kitchen, and said, “Pow!”

The kitchen sparkled, the sun was shining again, and Lydia might even be naked (she wouldn’t) in the waterfall pool by the time he got there. Today was a good day to be a poltergeist.


	8. In Which Reality Intrudes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After two years, I gave up on editing and making this thing make sense (I mean, as much as crack-plot fic EVER does...) and just posted all the rest of it. So, chapters 5-8 are recently posted here.

“But it’s been a month!” Barbara worried. “Anything could have happened to her by now!”

Adam embraced her comfortingly as two bony technicians fussed over a chalk drawing of a door, filled in with arcane geometry and squiggles that might have been ancient symbols or electrical diagrams. Sometimes the chalk would slip through their poorly articulated joints and they’d hollowly bonk their heads together reaching for it at the same time. Juno rolled her eyes and took an irritated puff of her cigarette every time this happened, but Adam tried to ignore the two stooges and reassure his wife while he, himself, did not feel assured in the first place.

“Lydia can handle herself,” he said. “She’s got…a unique perspective! Why, I’ll bet she’s got him wrapped around her little finger!”

Adam and Barbara both tried not to think about the court-decided measures which would have to be taken, if – well – if something dreadful (generally called Beetlejuice) had happened to Lydia. That poltergeist had broken the minds of stronger people before, and if the afterlife authorities wiped all the Deetzes’ memories in a measure to preserve their sanity, Lydia wouldn’t even remember the Maitlands, wouldn’t remember anything of the haunting in Winter River. It hurt, to think that they would lose the little time together that they’d shared.

Now the two boneheads were gesticulating at each other and fiercely rubbing out bits of chalk the other had drawn just to draw them back in exactly the same as before. After a few minutes of this, Juno pointedly said, “That’s enough! Knock on that thing before I run out of smokes, because my patience is already gone.” Giving her the dirty eyesocket, they knocked on the door facsimile three times and scrambled out of the way as the wall turned into the face of a groaning mausoleum, whose door slowly gaped open, gushing fog.

“Are…are you sure this will find them?” Barbara asked.

“I’m sure,” Juno said dryly, stepping through the portal. The carved marble door began to close and the Maitlands hurried after her.

As the fog lifted, the scene before them resolved into a white sandy beach and blue skies blending into the blue ocean. And in the middle of it all in a big, black blot was Lydia. She was looking extraordinarily pale, laying on a black lounge chair with black towels, and wearing a black one-piece (that showed more skin than the Maitlands were comfortable with, but a lot less than a certain poltergeist wanted) and a sheer robe. They watched dumbfounded as Lydia said lazily, “A little more to the left,” and Beetlejuice, clad in a turn-of-the-century striped bathing suit, appeared from behind the absolutely enormous striped beach umbrella and proceeded to adjust it to suit her.

He then knelt and began to fan Lydia adoringly with a giant palm leaf.

It took a moment for Juno to recover her poise from where it ran screaming into the distance, but when she did she strode forward commandingly and demanded, “What is going on here!”

Spinning around and snapping to his feet, Beetlejuice tossed the palm over his shoulder and endeavored to look as if he was never holding it, he didn’t even know what palm leaves were, honest. Lydia sat up and lowered her sunglasses, breaking out into a huge smile when she saw Adam and Barbara. She got up and ran towards them, and they raced towards her, and a group hug was had.

Meanwhile Juno was reading Beetlejuice the riot act, stepping in front of him and blocking his view of the lovely Lydia running down a beach. He wasn’t really listening, until she got to the point about ‘spatial boundaries.’ “Whoah, wait! You can’t do this to me! You just said the marriage is legit, we’re a bonafide Bonnie and Clyde!”

“Bonnie and Clyde had an illicit affair, Beetlebrains.”

“Still!”

“You should be thanking me! They wanted to bust you down so far you’d be lucky to ever dig your way back up to the worms. Instead, you get to pal around Out here, free as a bird.”

“Yeah, a caged bird!”

“If by that you mean the bird can go anywhere BUT in the cage, then yes. Otherwise, no.”

Hearing the commotion, Lydia wandered over, dragging the reluctant Maitlands behind her. “What’s going on?” she asked, reaching out to take Beetlejuice’s hand. Just as she touched his fingers, a spark flashed and they were both flung back.

Juno dragged on her cigarette and announced, “That must be the edict kicking in.”

Panicking, Beetlejuice tried to reach Lydia, sprawled out on the sand. But he hit a barrier that flashed as he scrabbled at it like a mime in a box. Barbara actually reached Lydia first, and lifted her gently, patting at her cheeks until she blinked and dazedly woke up.

“What the hell?” Lydia sputtered, pushing her way to her feet unsteadily and leaving Barbara protesting that she rest. “What the hell was that?”

“You won’t be able to go within three feet of each other. Spectral restraining order. He also can’t be more than three miles away from you. This was done for your own protection,” Juno said.

Lydia glanced quickly at Beetlejuice and back at Juno. Seeming to draw into herself, she said, “But I…I don’t need…I don’t want….”

“How are those damned pencil-pushers justifying this one, June-bug?” Beetlejuice demanded, clenching his fists. “What fine print in all those rule books does this come under? ‘Cause I gotta tell ya, I’ve read all of it and this ain’t in there! I would know!”

“Consummation,” Juno stated matter-of-factly.

“What? We exchanged soul essences! That’s –“

“Spiritual consummation. They’re citing living world precedents, and right now, the United States of America says that your marriage could be annulled.”

“But how’m I supposed to –“

“You’ll have conjugal visits. Once a year, when the boundaries between the worlds are thin. They didn’t want to even give you that, but it’s not like they have much choice in the matter.”

“But-!”

“You had a whole month. What exactly is it that Lydia Deetz doesn’t need and doesn’t want?”

Everyone turned to look at Lydia, although admittedly for different reasons. Juno was wryly speculative, Adam looked on in consternation, and Barbara seemed torn between approval at how she held out and dismay at how close she did get. Beetlejuice however, was looking more and more betrayed the longer Lydia didn’t say anything, boxed in between what she should want and what she did want.

“I get it. I know when I’m not wanted,” he snapped, and she flinched. He jammed a fedora on his head and picked up a suitcase. “Be seein’ ya at Halloween, Lyds, and don’t think I’ll be gentle!”

“Wait a gosh-darned minute!” Adam began to protest.

Beetlejuice sent a heated look her way, making Lydia shiver, and not exactly in fright.

Then he was gone, and Lydia hadn’t said anything. 

She didn’t speak as her parent ghosts fussed over her and Juno explained things in exact, brutal detail. She nodded when they wanted a yes and shook her head when they wanted a no. She didn’t say a word as they were transported home and met with her smiling parents, who didn’t remember a thing at all about any ghosts or how she’d been missing for a month. Delia complimented her swimsuit. Not a sound escaped her as she was ensconced in her old new room and left to rest, almost wistfully wishing that Juno had approved that her memories be wiped too, because then it probably wouldn’t hurt as much.

She flopped on her bed, coughing a little at the puff of dust from a month of disuse. Then she heard what felt like the most unlikely sound in the world.

“Hey, you didn’t think ya were going to get out of your half of the deal so easily, did ya?”

She bounced off the bed, a shy smile stealing over her face. Colliding with the barrier, she bounced right back onto the bed. Beetlejuice was sitting a foot above her desk grinning maniacally, wearing his favorite suit.

“I can hardly hand-feed you beetles like this though, can I?” Slowly this time, Lydia pushed at the barrier. “I’m sorry,” she said, and meant it about more than their silly trade.

He tossed a greasy packet labeled ‘sugar beetle babies’ at her. “You wanted fan-action, I did the thing with the palm waving! The least you can do is throw these at my mouth. While naked.” Which was his version of ‘apology accepted.’

Smirking, Lydia teasingly took off her robe and toyed with the strap of her swimsuit, before lobbing a sugar encrusted beetle hard at his hopeful face. “Nope, I don’t think so!”

It smacked his forehead and stuck there before his alarmingly long tongue snatched it into his mouth, where a big crunch finished it off. “That the best ya got?” he laughed, and tried to pay more attention to where she was throwing the beetles than what the throwing was doing to her anatomy.

Maybe by October he’ll have convinced her that they didn’t need to wait.

THE END!


	9. EPILOGUE

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aaaaaand NOW, after getting to know each other and going on many adventures together a la cartoon Beej and Lyds...they get their smoochies.
> 
> And quite a bit more. So, warning! Rating very briefly goes up!

_Some many months later:_

“Hey Lyds,” a rough voice tickled her ear, making her sleepily swat at it before she rolled over on her other side.

“Five more minutes,” she mumbled as she snuggled her pillow, which was a bit lumpy this morning. She hoped Beetlejuice didn’t flip over her mattress again, it was barely even light out. He couldn’t touch her directly given the edict from the powers that be, but he could still cause a lot of chaos. She shivered, wondering if they’d left the window open again last night. It smelled like Beej’d been smoking again.

“Lyds, guess what today is?” A cool breath swept across her other ear, making her yank the blanket over her head.

“Mmrph, sleepy. Go away.” She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to ignore him, but then a hand wandered down her back and attached itself firmly to one ass cheek. Her eyes snapped open. In the cavern of her covers, cadaverous green orbs lit the darkness.

“Happy Halloween,” he grinned with too many crooked teeth and used his hold to lever her into place over him. His free hand tangled in the hair at the base of her skull. The blankets slipped away.

Her heart pounded in her throat and her mouth was dry as the Sahara and this was her best friend. He’d never let her forget he wanted her body but somehow it had become unimportant, just a thing he did, making tasteless innuendo and staring at her at the most inappropriate times. It hadn’t mattered. It turned out they could talk about anything with each other – he was impossible to out-gross and she had a legendarily blasé face that nothing could crack. There were no taboos between them. The one thing they’d never talked about was what would actually happen today. He was the only one in the whole world she was herself – all of herself – with. And he couldn’t touch her – except for today, when the boundaries between the worlds were thin and all sorts of things became possible.

He kissed her, his chapped lips meeting her mouth soft with sleep and surprise. Staring into those eyes she knew so well now, she thought, _This is my best friend._ And she let her lips part and the tip of her tongue brush the seam of his mouth. 

Unholy glee sparkled over his face, chasing away the faint doubt that had overshadowed it and which he would have hotly denied. 

Lydia’s breasts apparently though it was freezing and her stomach had decided it was on fire. As their tongues dueled it was suddenly very important that he wanted her.

Her hands splayed over his shoulders and slipped down, under the lapels of his favorite suit jacket. Tentatively she caressed his chest. Shocked, she groped his impressively defined pecs and then sat straight up, gasping as this brought her pelvis directly against a hard length she had felt before, albeit unwillingly at that time.

“Hell, Lyds!” he exclaimed as their kiss broke.

“Off!” Lydia said authoritatively as she tugged on his shirt.

He quirked a sharply angled brow and rocked his hips, both hands on her rear now pulling her into him. “Uh,” he grunted, “You’re the one sitting on me, babes.”

She made a completely embarrassing noise, something between an ‘mmm’ and an ‘ah!’ before she regained her wits and whipped off his tie. “Your shirt, you idiot! Take it off.’

His eyes widened. Never one to miss a change to gloat, he said, “I dunno if I oughta! Y’see,” he continued as he leisurely drew his hands up her body, “I’m afraid for my virtue – I think I’ve created a monster out of my wife!” His thumbs found her aching nipples.

Arching and panting, she rolled her eyes at him and yanked open his jacket. The magenta shirt proved a little more troublesome, her hands shaking enough to make undoing it impossibly frustrating. “Fuck! How many god damn buttons are there?” she hissed.

He only laughed and tongued her breasts through her thin cotton nightgown. As he unexpectedly sucked on the left one, her hands flew to his head and she debated for a long moment, but in the end shoved him away. Sprawled out on his back he aimed a wounded look at her. 

Deciding to try out one of his lines on him, she breathlessly declared, “C’mon, let’s get naked.”

Instead of blinking away their clothes like she had hoped, he instead leaned up slightly to rest his weight on his elbows. Then he asked, “But seriously though, are you feelin’ okay? Not taken any strange candy, or read one a’ your weird books aloud, somethin’ like that?”

She might have thought he’d lost interest, if it wasn’t for the pressing evidence to the contrary between her thighs, which the slight rolling of his hips rubbed against her center in a highly distracting way. Un-amused, she heaved a sigh - the motion of her slight chest drawing his eyes down like a magnet. Deliberately moving her own hips in an untutored grind, she decided she must have done something right when he cursed a blue streak. One thing spending so much time with him had done was definitely to expand her vocabulary.

She leaned down until her forehead met his with a quiet thunk and very clearly said, “I just want you to lose the shirt.”

And then she ground against him again.

He gasped, “You first!”

Never one to back down from such a blatant challenge, she rose up on her knees to untangle her shapeless black nightgown and toss it over her head. His hips strained off the bed to follow hers but she scrambled to her feet, swallowed her uncertain modesty, and propped her hands on her hips. 

“Now it’s your turn.”

His jaw hanging open, gaping at the mostly naked vision staring down at him, Beetlejuice simply grabbed either side of his shirt and ripped it open, two or three buttons snapping off into the distance. Taking off their clothes the old fashioned way seemed to be going suspiciously well for him. He was halfway through shrugging off his shirt and suit jacket when Lydia abruptly sat back down, her knees landing on his elbows with his clothes tangled around them, trapping his arms. He yelped.

She had known he was sort of barrel-shaped. She’d even found his pot belly kind of cute, in a silly way. The physique now revealed to her eager hands was in fact a barrel made out of muscles. Yes, there was some fat around his middle. Her palms on his cold, dirty skin reported sinewy strength underneath. He was powerful as a ghost, but his body had been built for hard labor, and plenty of it. The sort of muscle a man accumulated working for a living, not that of a pretty boy hitting the gym. The mold growing in odd crevices hardly registered, she was so used to seeing it on his face. “Why didn’t you ever tell me you were stacked, Beej? You’re always wearing so many layers, even your stupid swimsuit covers everything up!” 

“Stacked, huh?” he leered. “I gotta ward off all the chicks throwin’ themselves at me somehow.” He flexed arms as thick as her neck and suddenly she found herself flat on her back with her legs thrown over his shoulders, only her underwear between them. “Following me around, shoving their,” he waggled his eyebrows, “phone numbers at me.” Of course now he decided to vanish his clothes.

And then, of course, her alarm rang. Unacknowledged by the involved pair, the sun had climbed well over the horizon. Soon Barbara would be coming to make sure Lydia, a perpetual late riser, actually woke up. The clock met an untimely death by sandworm as Beetlejuice sent it to Saturn, but he had a feeling Lydia wouldn’t approve of him taking care of Barb the same way. The finale (as it were) would have to wait, but never let it be said that he (being the gentleman he was not) had ever left a lady unsatisfied.

The underwear was gone with less than a thought and then his hands were everywhere, teasing and stroking with his clever, long-nailed fingers. More than two hands, in fact. She lost count after five or six, when he bent his mouth to the task of making her scream.

He succeeded admirably.

When Barbara burst in Lydia was laying dazed and alone under the covers, once more respectably in her nightgown. She barely managed to answer her panicked god-parent’s inquiries, stammering out that she’d had a dream. That earned her a sympathetic look and a hug that Lydia did her best to endure. “Worried about – him?” Barbara awkwardly asked, assuming it was a nightmare. “You shouldn’t let him spoil your favorite holiday! We’ll protect you…somehow.”

The Maitlands had adjusted to Beetlejuice hanging around and getting Lydia into trouble (they didn’t realize that half the time it was the other way around), mostly because they had no choice. They would probably never trust him. Eventually she would have to break the news that, well, she was good and truly married to him for real and everything. But it didn’t have to be today. Her real father and step-mother wouldn’t ever believe her, and if they hadn’t always been oblivious and self-absorbed before, Lydia would have assumed the mind wipe the Neitherworld authorities had performed had permanently damaged their brains.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Lydia finally said, planning her revenge. Delia, in one of her misguided crusades, had gotten Lydia a pink, fuzzy rabbit suit costume that Beej had laughed and laughed about. Lydia was sure there was time enough today to go exchange it for something a little more suitable for trick-or-treating a certain poltergeist…


End file.
